The gap between the American people and the United States military is growing, with implications for the preservation of democratic institutions. The gap has contributed to the erosion of democratic norms by negatively affecting perceptions of citizenship obligations and weakening the attachment to national institutions. Ironically, a feature of the gap is the rise of a “warrior caste” of men and women who self-select to join the all-volunteer force (AVF), leaving the remaining 99.5% of citizens to think that national defense is a concern for “other people.” With only 1 in 200 Americans directly involved in military service, the wars that the AVF serves in do not directly affect most Americans or their elected representatives. This indifference has led to perpetual wars with poor oversight, eroding the democratic norm of citizen oversight of and participation in the nation’s wars. The civil–military gap can be mitigated with a comprehensive expansion of programs that offer opportunities for military and national service, the adoption of more robust civic education in civilian and military education systems, and fostering a culture of defense among the citizenry.
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The U.S. Civil–Military Relations Gap and the Erosion of Historical Democratic Norms
Marybeth P. Ulrich
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U.S. Military Service and LGBT Policy
Marissa Reilly, Elizabeth L. Hillman, and Elliot Koltnow
Examining the evolution of U.S military policy reveals how debates about the rights and opportunities of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people have been shaped by military personnel policies, federal laws, and cultural practices within military units. LGBT individuals have experienced U.S. military service through regulatory regimes that have often defined them as burdensome deviants and denied them civil rights enjoyed by other service members.
LGBT people have served as volunteers and conscripts, openly and in the closet. Key periods of U.S. military history for LGBT service include World War II, the Cold War, as well as the Vietnam War era, the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” (DADT) regime (1994–2010), and the post-DADT period (2011 and beyond). During these periods of time, the armed forces and the United States reassessed the regulation of the service of LGBT service members and implemented changes that affected the rights, opportunities, and safety of LGBT military personnel and potential recruits. Those changes traced a path from outright exclusion of open service by LGBT persons to exemption, under which LGBT persons may serve under certain conditions, which often included the threat of expulsion, punishment, and extra-legal violence. In the post-DADT period, inclusion, or open service by some, but not all, LGBT groups, was made legal and safer through changes in law and military regulations and training that protected against some types of gender-identity and sexual orientation discrimination.
Because serving openly in the military is a sign of full citizenship in the United States as well as a means of achieving economic security, eliminating limits on LGBT military service has long been a focus of advocates for civil rights. Military service has been perceived as proving a citizen’s loyalty and patriotism as well as offering material and social advancement. With many LGBT people at greater risk of unemployment, homelessness, and premature death as a result of violence and social ostracism, military service has been an especially critical opportunity for political and economic advancement.
Honoring this history and identifying existing trends can help the United States, other nations, and international organizations to adapt their policies in recognition of gender and sexual diversity. Even when excluded by formal policy, people have found ways to serve, sometimes at great personal risk. Although their labor is officially lauded as an asset, their contributions and needs have not been fully recognized or appreciated by the state they pledged to serve. As the nation’s largest employer and provider of structural resources, the U.S. military’s support of LGBT military personnel and veterans matters greatly to social equity for a still-vulnerable LGBT population.
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The U.S. Politico–Military–Industrial Complex
John A. Alic
The three large military services—Army, Navy, and Air Force—comprise the core of the U.S. politico–military–industrial complex. They dominate decision making on multi-billion dollar weapon systems and the operational concepts these are intended to embody. The armed forces need private firms to realize their visions of new weaponry, since government has limited capacity in engineering design and development and limited production facilities. Running a successful defense business means giving the services what they want, or think they want, whether this makes technical and operational sense or not; thus industry caters to the views of the services, and while it seeks to influence them, does so mostly at the margins.
The political dynamics of the complex take place in two primary domains, only loosely coupled. The first is largely contained within the Defense Department. This is the main arena for conflict and bargaining within and among the services and between the services, individually and collectively, and Pentagon civilians. Most of what happens here stays hidden from outsiders. Service leaders generally seek to resolve disagreements among themselves; the goal, often although not always achieved, is to present a united front to civilian officials and the public at large. The second domain extends to the rest of government, chiefly Congress, with its multiple committees and subcommittees, and the White House, home of the powerful Office of Management and Budget among other sources of policy leverage.
The complex as a whole is an artifact of the Cold War, not greatly changed over the decades. Repeated efforts at restructuring and reform have led to little. The primary reason is that military leaders, senior officers who have reached the topmost ranks after lengthy immersion in generally conservative organizational cultures, usually have the upper hand in bureaucratic struggles. They believe the military’s views on choice of weapons—the views of seasoned professionals—should have precedence over those of civilians, whether Pentagon appointees and their staffs, elected officials, or outside experts. They usually prevail, since few of the political appointees on the civilian side of DoD and in policy-influencing positions elsewhere can command similar authority. If they do not prevail on a particular issue, service leaders expect to outwait their opponents; if they lose one battle over money or some cherished weapon system, they anticipate winning the next.
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Ukraine and the European Union
Giselle Bosse
In early 2014, a series of dramatic crises in Ukraine generated headlines around the world. Most scholarly attention was placed on the tensions between the West and Russia, and the emergence of a new Cold War, especially following Russia’s annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its military incursion in eastern Ukraine. The relations between Ukraine and the European Union (EU) have often been reduced to debates on whether the EU was to blame for the conflict, having “sleepwalked” into the Ukraine crisis by focusing on technical trade issues and failing to recognize the delicate geopolitical context. Other analysts pointed to the EU’s pursuit of regional hegemony, which has failed to recognize Russia’s legitimate geopolitical and economic interests in Ukraine. In practice, Ukraine‒EU relations have been more complex and nuanced, certainly when considering that Ukraine already declared its ambition to “return to Europe” and to seek EU membership with its proclamation of independence, in 1991.
Ukraine-EU relations are perhaps best understood along four levels of inquiry. The first is domestic dynamics in Ukraine. Since the end of the Cold War, all Ukrainian governments have underlined the “Europeanness” of Ukraine and have also by and large followed a pro-EU course in their foreign policies, including the government under pro-Russian president Viktor Yanukovych. However, Ukraine’s European choice has often been limited to foreign-policy declarations. Even the pro-European and reform-oriented governments that led Ukraine after the 2004 Orange Revolution and the 2014 Maidan Square protests struggled to introduce far-reaching reforms because of the power of the “iron triangle” of oligarchic rule, corruption, and financial instability.
The second line of inquiry concerns Ukraine-Russia relations. Since gaining independence, Ukraine’s strategy has been one of limited participation in Russia’s post-Soviet regional integration initiatives in order to safeguard its independence. However, Russia always used “sticks and carrots” vis-à-vis Ukraine to further its own policy objectives, ranging from offering gas-price discounts to cutting off gas supplies, imposing import bans on Ukrainian produce, and, since 2014, threatening and using the military to force Ukraine to acquiesce to its demands.
A third line of inquiry is the EU’s policy toward Ukraine, based on bilateral relations and cooperation through the European Neighbourhood Policy and the Eastern Partnership. The EU has approached Ukraine as one among several neighbors in its attempt to build a ring of well-governed countries along its borders. Although the EU’s enlargement to Central and Eastern Europe generated more interest in Ukraine, member states have consistently ruled out EU membership for Ukraine.
A fourth theme of inquiry is that of EU-Russia relations in the wider international context. Throughout the 1990s and the early 2000s, the EU clearly prioritized good political and economic relations with Russia over its relationship with its neighbors in the East, including Ukraine. Even when Russia annexed Crimea and when evidence of the role of Russian forces in eastern Ukraine had become impossible to ignore, the EU struggled to find a common stance on Russia.
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The United Kingdom: Increasingly Fractious Civil–Military Relations
Andrew M. Dorman
Civil–military relations in the United Kingdom have traditionally not been a major issue. This is partly a reflection of its history. The U.K. mainland has not been invaded since 1066. Since the civil war in the 17th century and the union of Scotland with England at the beginning of the 18th century, there has not been a need to maintain significant land forces at home. The Royal Navy has provided the first and main line of defense. The civil war in many ways set the tone for subsequent civil–military relations. Most powers related to the armed forces have been retained under the royal prerogative, effectively in the hands of the prime minister, but Parliament has retained a degree of oversight and controls the purse strings.
However, beneath this veneer there are increasing tensions between the military and political authorities as the former have sought an increasing role in policymaking, particularly in terms of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Moreover, the armed forces themselves have struggled to come to terms with adapting to the society from which they are drawn. Since the 1990s they have had to give ground on the issues of gender and sexuality, and they are increasingly criticized for their lack of diversification—an issue that they have sought to mask by recruiting from the Commonwealth.
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The United Kingdom’s LGBT Movement and Interest Groups
Daryl Leeworthy
The LGBT movement in the United Kingdom has had considerable success in its campaign for equal rights and legal protection, in common with LGBT movements across the world. Early organization took place in secret in the late 19th and early 20th centuries before the heyday of LGBT political campaigning in the 1960s and 1970s. Key organizations in the United Kingdom included the Campaign for Homosexual Equality, the Gay Liberation Front, the Scottish Minorities Group, the Northern Ireland Gay Rights Association, and the lesbian groups Kenric and Sappho. In the 1980s, the LGBT movement responded to the twin threats of HIV/AIDS and the Section 28 (or 2A in Scotland) legislation through a renewed campaigning vigor. The 21st century ushered in a period of celebration and commemoration through the advent of Pride and the establishment of heritage projects and academic research, although significant political and policy challenges remain, particularly for trans* people and for immigrants and asylum seekers.
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The United States and the European Union
Roberto Dominguez and Joshua Weissman LaFrance
The history of the European Union (EU) is closely associated with the development of the United States. As the process of European integration has produced institutions and gained a collective international presence, the United States has been a close observer, partner, and often critic of the policies and actions of the EU and its member states. A steady progression of events delineates this path: the Marshall Plan, origins of European integration, the Cold War, the post–Cold War, 9/11 and its effects on the international system, the Great Recession, and the deterioration of global democracy. All throughout, the EU and the United States have both cooperated and collided with one another, in line with the combination of three main factors: (a) the evolution of the EU as an independent, international actor; (b) American strategies for engagement with Europe and then with the EU; and (c) the adaptive capacity and cohesion of the overall transatlantic relationship.
The EU–U.S. relationship is significant not only for the influential role of the EU in world affairs but also because, as opposed to China or Russia, the transatlantic area hosts one of the most solid relationships around the world. Crises surely have been, and will be, a frequent aspect of the intense interdependences on both sides of the Atlantic; however, the level of contestation and conflict is relatively low, particularly as compared with other areas that smoothly allow the flow of goods, services, people, and ideas. Taken altogether, then, the transatlantic relationship possesses a strong foundation: it is integral, resilient, and enduring over a history of diplomatic disagreements and conflicts. The primary question remains just how this steady stream and confluence of shared challenges ultimately will fare in face of evolving crises and systemic disruptors. In any case, the answer is determined by the enduring nature, and foreign policy choices, of the primary actors on each side of the Atlantic.
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Urban Popular Movements in Latin America
Paul Dosh
In Latin America, urban popular movements emerged in the late 1940s as thousands of low-income migrants and city residents banded together to claim land, build self-help housing, and forge neighborhood organizations that fomented community participation and mobilized to demand land titles and city services. These neighborhoods were characterized by informal housing; inadequate provision of electricity, water, sanitation, transportation, and social services; and informal employment and underemployment. During the authoritarianism of the 1960s and 1970s, some urban popular movements resisted military dictatorship while others forged clientelist ties. Democratic and authoritarian leaders alike were forced to deal with the steady influx of rural migrants to cities, and regimes of all types often came to view informal neighborhoods founded by urban popular movements as an acceptable solution to some of the challenges of urbanization. In the 1980s and 1990s, neoliberal privatization of public utilities and cuts to social safety nets harmed urban popular movements, but national and local democratization expanded some avenues of participation, and the regional trend of urban popular movements expanded in numbers and extended its geographic reach. In the 2000s, socialist “Pink Tide” governments delivered benefits to low-income sectors, and many popular sectors supported these leftist regimes. Material gains proved modest, however, and state-movement alliances were rocky, leaving urban popular movements in the awkward position of being dissatisfied with national leadership, yet preferring the Pink Tide incumbents to most alternatives. And in the 2010s, a new “right turn” emerged, as conservative leaders replaced many Pink Tide presidents, threatening to reintroduce the repressive over-policing of popular sectors. Throughout these periods, the core conceptual identity of some urban popular movements shifted from the poblador (the “founder” seeking to meet his or her family’s needs) to the vecino (the “neighbor” collaborating with other movement participants through collective efforts), to the ciudadano (the empowered “citizen” who recognizes his or her needs as rights to be secured through political engagement).
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Uruguay: No Country for a Military?
David Altman and Nicole Jenne
Scholars have paid little attention to the Uruguayan armed forces, an institution that has never been fully entrusted with the country’s external security. This is explained by Uruguay’s geographical condition as a buffer state, sandwiched between South America’s biggest countries, Brazil and Argentina. The power differential with either one of them has rendered the prospect of a viable defense futile. Accordingly, those who have studied the Uruguayan military concur that it has traditionally had difficulties finding a place and recognition within the state and society. Throughout its history, the military has been a rather weak institution mostly subordinate to democratic control.
After the creation of Uruguay in 1828, it took several decades until a truly national military was established. The late 19th and early 20th century represent an exception in the country’s history as the armed forces underwent a modernization process backed by government resources. Military professionalization consolidated civilian control. Yet, soon after, the strengthening of democratic institutions and a high degree of social stability maneuvered the armed forces into a position of political neglect. This changed rather abruptly in the late 1960s, when a severe social, economic, and political crisis drove the ruling elites to call upon the armed forces to restore order. The military launched a coup d’état in 1973 and remained in power until 1985, when a negotiated transition put an end to the dictatorship and the U.S.-supported National Security Doctrine.
Subsequent democratic governments gradually reestablished civilian control and reduced the budget and size of the institution. However, given the stigmas from the dictatorship, together with the traditionally low esteem in which the military has been held, politicians have been slow in taking on necessary reforms in the military and defense sectors. Political neglect has allowed the armed forces considerable autonomy in military and defense policymaking, due to lack of civilian involvement. The decision to have the armed forces participate in UN peacekeeping—since 1992, Uruguay has almost consistently been among the top peacekeeping contributors per capita—has provided solutions to a number of pending questions regarding the role of the armed forces. Participation in peacekeeping allows for financial resources to supplement military salaries and acquisition funds. It provides the armed forces with a mission and has brought them closer to the civilian foreign policy elite. Yet, Uruguay still seems to wonder whether the country wants to have its armed forces.
Article
Valkyrie: The Anti-Nazi Underground in the Wehrmacht, 1938–1945
Danny Orbach
Most Germans supported Adolf Hitler’s dictatorship between 1933 and 1945. Yet, a small group of officers and politicians who did not support Hitler formed a clandestine anti-Nazi underground. Retrospectively known as the German Resistance Movement, it began its activity in 1938 with a desperate attempt to prevent war in Europe and culminated in the coup d’état and failed assassination attempt on Hitler of July 20, 1944.
The resistance was led by General Ludwig Beck, former chief of the general staff, who resigned in 1938 because of significant disagreements with Hitler’s foreign policy. Beck supervised the work of three successive military directors, Colonel Hans Oster, Colonel Henning von Tresckow, and Colonel Claus Schenck von Stauffenberg. All three attempted to overthrow the Nazi regime, with different strategies shaped by the structure of their conspiratorial networks and the pressure of wartime conditions. Oster, a senior officer in the military intelligence service, tried to exploit his connections in the general staff to stage a coup in the name of the entire army. Tresckow led a vanguard underground of loosely connected cliques, designed to assassinate Hitler and then exploit the ensuing chaos to take power. Stauffenberg led a “wheel conspiracy,” a highly centralized underground, thinly spread over large parts of the Nazi empire. Under his leadership, the movement staged the famous coup of July 20, 1944.
While the evidence clearly shows that the conspirators acted out of principled opposition to Nazi policies, their precise motives are still controversial. Were they moved by disgust at National Socialist war crimes, or more by the patriotic goal of saving Germany from a doomed war? In fact, the worldview of most conspirators saw the universal and the national as closely intertwined. This particular style of patriotic morality and moralistic patriotism is a key to understanding their motives, as well as to the debate on their complicity in National Socialist war crimes.
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Venezuela: Coup-Proofing From Pérez Jiménez to Maduro
Deborah L. Norden
From the middle of the 20th century, Venezuela’s governments have demonstrated surprising immunity to successful coups. The more than 40-year Punto Fijo democracy (1958–1999) boasted free and competitive elections even while the vast majority of Latin American governments fell to military rule. Two decades later, the beleaguered government of Nicolás Maduro withstood not only national, but international demands for a military coup under conditions of virtual economic collapse and extreme political crisis. This resilience is largely a function of successful coup-proofing—deliberate government policies to both reward military loyalty and defend against possible dissent. The Bolivarian leaders of the early 21st century—Hugo Chávez and Nicolás Maduro— built on a combination of strategies previously utilized by either the Pérez Jiménez military regime (1948–1958) or the Punto Fijo democratic regime, notably expanding such elements as politicization and the creation of competing militarized forces (counterbalancing) to fit with the revolutionary model that the chavistas sought to pursue.
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Venezuela's Oil Wealth and Social Transformation
Dario Azzellini
With the victory of Hugo Chávez in the 1998 presidential elections, Venezuela became the first country in the Latin American “pink tide.” Up to then, mainstream political analysis had considered Venezuela a stable liberal democracy. Little attention had been paid to the country internationally. Former army officer Chávez was met with suspicion by the international left, which knew little about the Venezuelan left and the contemporary history of the country, and the right thought it could persuade him to act in its interests. The process of social transformation launched, named the “Bolivarian Revolution” after Venezuelan independence leader Simón Bolivar, became radicalized rapidly and was soon declared socialist. Internal policies were characterized by popular participation, expropriations, and redistribution of the oil wealth. Internationally, Venezuela took an active role in promoting regional integration and South–South cooperation. Chávez and the social transformation process in Venezuela rapidly gained strong sympathies among social movements and the radical left throughout the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region; for the same reasons, Venezuela came to be the number-one enemy of the Latin American right and the United States, which supported several attempts to overthrow the government. After Chávez’s death in 2013, his successor, Nicolás Maduro, faced an increasingly violent opposition, a severe economic crisis, growing hostility from the United States and the European Union (EU), and a regional context in which the rise of right-wing governments reversed the “pink tide.” Since early 2019, the situation has escalated because of sanctions by the U.S. and EU countries; the recognition of a self-proclaimed “interim president” belonging to the opposition, by the United States, most EU countries, and the right-wing governments in Latin America; coup attempts; and the open threat of U.S. military intervention. The unfolding of the Bolivarian Revolution, the forces at play, and the main points of conflict need to be analyzed in their historical context.
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War and Religion: An Overview
Jason Klocek and Ron E. Hassner
Although largely ignored by international relations scholars until the 21st century, religion has been and remains a pervasive social force both on and off the battlefield. It affects how combatants mobilize and prepare for war. It regulates how they fight, including unit organization and strategic decision making. In addition, religious identities, beliefs, practices, and symbols shape how and when combatants pursue peace. The study of religion and war seeks to discover and understand these varied influences, even when religion is not the pretext for fighting.
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West Africa: Civil–Military Relations From a Colonial Perspective
Naila Salihu
Civil–military relations is traditionally concerned with the nature and interaction among three societal actors namely military institutions, political elites, and the citizenry. The nature of this complex relationship and whether it is harmonious to prevent military intervention in politics depends on how these societal actors cooperate on certain societal variables. Civil–military relations of West African countries are influenced by those countries’ colonial and postindependence experiences. The military establishments of most African states were birthed from colonial armies. Historically rooted pathologies about the role of the security and defense forces in society created deep cleavages between state and the military, and their relations to political authority on the one hand, and society on the other.
The use of African armies for political and imperialist purposes during the colonial era and their roles in the struggle for independence were important factors in shaping the behavior of African armies after independence. Most colonial states did not attain independence with indigenous, nationalist-oriented military institutions. The transition of colonial regiments into the national armies of newly independent states were met with challenges in terms of establishing legitimacy and effectiveness, as these institutions had been set up under conditions that were not ideally suited to the needs of new states. Most postindependence African leaders missed the opportunity to build democratic and national militaries; instead, they maintained the status quo, as these leaders appeared more interested in building large armies for the purposes of regime stability. Successive political leaders resorted to deleterious devices such as patron–client systems, ethnic manipulation, and politicization of the military. These practices undermined the professionalism of the security apparatus and provided breeding grounds for pretorian tendencies. As the military became conscious of their political power, coups d’état became a common feature in the political dispensation of West African states.
Frequent military interventions in West Africa often came with destabilizing consequences such as devastating military rules, intra-military conflicts, insurgencies, and even civil wars. Even in those countries where civil wars did not occur, the military were influential in the political landscape, in which autocratic regimes ruled with an iron hand and often used the military to inflict severe hardship on the citizens. With the return to constitutional democracies from the late 1980s, it was widely expected the role or influence of the military in the political space would be diminished as those states became more professional and democratic. However, coups d’état have reduced in the region, rather than going away completely, and the military as a state institution with a monopoly over legitimate force remains a very strong political actor, even under civilian governments.
Former metropoles have been providing defense and security assistance programs to West African states for diverse reasons, including maintaining strategic hold on former colonies. Some of these interventions that aim at professionalization of the military have produced mixed outcomes in the region. In Anglophone West Africa, the British colonial policy of indirect rule contributed to the class division between the upper class (civilian politicians) and the lower class (the military and common people). This, coupled with the use of the military as agents of repression to safeguard colonial interests, created a popular dislike and negative image of colonial armies. State militaries went on to become destabilizing forces in political processes across the region. After independence, United Kingdom maintained a fluctuating presence in its former colonies due to its imperial past and strategic interests. In French West Africa, Africans were recruited from French colonies into the French army serve France’s military interests. African soldiers played diverse roles in their countries’ struggles for independence, which led to the military’s having a central role in the politics of postindependence Francophone states. France’s Africa policy differs from that of other former colonial powers in terms of its postindependence engagements with former colonies. In other parts of West Africa, Portuguese colonialism contributed to the creation of a central role for national liberation forces, which metamorphosed into postindependence military and political actors, with destabilizing consequences.
Article
The Western European Union (WEU)
Maxime H. A. Larivé
This empirical and historical analysis of the Western European Union (WEU), an intergovernmental defense organization, contributes to the broader understanding of the construction and integration of European security and defense policy. The WEU was established in 1954 by the Modified Brussels Treaty after the failure of the European Defense Community and at the time of the construction of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).
Over its lifetime, the WEU was confronted by two major trends: the centrality of collective defense agreement providing security on the European continent enforced by NATO and the construction of a European security and defense policy within the broad integration process of the European Union (EU). The WEU provided a platform for Western European powers, particularly France, the United Kingdom, and Germany, to engage in the construction of a European defense. Historically, these countries had diverging visions ranging from an autonomous force to one that should remain under the NATO auspice.
The end of the Cold War accelerated the transfer of the WEU mission to the EU, but the crises in the Gulf region and in the Balkans in 1990s led to a period of activity for the WEU. The institutionalization of the EU, beginning with the 1992 Treaty of Maastricht, accelerated the construction of a European defense and security policy within EU structures. The transfer from the WEU to the EU began in the late 1990s and the WEU was dissolved in 2011.
Article
Women and Political Power in Brazil
Pedro A. G. Dos Santos and Debora Thomé
Women have been historically excluded from positions of power in Brazil. Since the dawn of republicanism in the late 19th century, the political system has been dominated by men, and two long periods of authoritarianism stunted both the development of a strong women’s movement and the entrance of women into formal politics. Nevertheless, women have always been involved in the political process, and women’s groups have fought for women’s rights since the dawn of the republic. Successful examples include the suffrage movement, women’s movements that helped the return to democracy in the 1980s, and small victories such as domestic violence laws and maintenance of the status quo in the abortion law and reproductive rights.
The end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century marked the slow increased presence of women in elected positions. The implementation of a gender quota law in 1996 and continued pressure by women politicians, those in the state apparatus, and women’s movements brought the issue of women’s representation to the forefront of debates about democratic development in Brazil. Although women still face strong barriers to enter the electoral arena, developments in the early 21st century such as the strengthening of the quota law show that the political space is slowly opening its doors to women.
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Women, Equality, and Citizenship in Contemporary Africa
Robtel Neajai Pailey
Though deeply contested, citizenship has come to be defined in gender-inclusive terms both as a status anchored in law, with attendant rights and resources, and as agency manifested in active political participation and representation. Scholars have argued that gender often determines how citizenship rights are distributed at household, community, national, and institutional levels, thereby leaving women with many responsibilities but few resources and little representation. Citizenship laws in different parts of Africa explicitly discriminate based on ethnicity, race, gender and religion, with women bearing the brunt of these inequities. In particular, African women have faced structural, institutional, and cultural barriers to ensuring full citizenship in policy and praxis, with contestations in the post-independence era centering around the fulfillment of citizenship rights embedded in law, practice, and lived experience.
While African women’s concerns about their subjective roles as equal citizens were often sidelined during nationalist liberation movements, the post-independence era has presented more meaningful opportunities for women in the continent to demand equality of access to citizenship rights, resources, and representation. In contemporary times, a number of local, national, continental, and transnational developments have shaped the contours of the battle for women’s citizenship equality, including the prominence of domestic women’s movements; national constitutional reviews and revisions processes; electoral quotas; female labor force participation; and feminism as a unifying principle of gender justice.
African women have had to overcome constraints imposed on them not only by patriarchy, but also by histories of slavery, colonialism, structural adjustment, land dispossession, militarism, and neoliberalism. They have often been subordinated in the domestic or private sphere, with gendered values and norms then undermining their agency in the public sphere. Although African women have managed to secure some political, socio-economic, and cultural rights, resources, and representation, this has certainly not been the panacea for achieving full equality of citizenship or gender justice.
Article
Zapatistas and New Ways of Doing Politics
Richard Stahler-Sholk
Scholars of Latin American social movements since the 1980s have sought to explain the apparent upswing in cycles of contentious politics, the innovative characteristics of these new movements, and variations in how they interact with or sidestep conventional institutional politics. The regional context for these developments is very different from the postmaterialist conditions said to have spawned European “new social movements” since the 1970s revolving around identity and values, such as ecology, peace, gay rights, and women’s movements. Relevant causal factors for Latin America’s contemporary movements include popular reaction against neoliberal policies imposed by international financial institutions and brokered by national governments. Another factor was the transition from military authoritarianism in much of the region, inaugurating a struggle between political elites with a liberal-representative vision of democratization and social movements favoring radical/participatory democracy. The era of globalization also brought reexamination of the citizenship pact and of the hegemonic (mestizo) construction of the nation-state, fueling a reinvigoration of indigenous movements, some with their own cosmovisions of buen vivir (living well) that destabilized mainstream notions of the political. The interplay between party-electoral politics and grassroots movement activism took place against the backdrop of the “pink tide” of elected leftist governments, which swept much of the region in the first decade of the 21st century and subsequently appeared to recede. Throughout this period, scholars and activists alike debated whether fundamental change could best be achieved by movements pushing parties and governments to use state power to enact reforms or by movements themselves adopting radically horizontal and inclusive patterns of organizing—“new ways of doing politics”—that would transform society from below.
The January 1, 1994, Zapatista uprising among mostly Maya peasants in the poor southeastern Mexican state of Chiapas, launched the day the North American Free Trade Agreement took effect, became emblematic of new ways of doing politics from below. What began as a rebellion of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation (Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional [EZLN]) quickly morphed into a social movement that both criticized national and global power structures and sought to empower local communities through everyday practices of de facto autonomy. Negotiations with the state over indigenous rights and culture quickly broke down, but the Zapatistas proceeded anyway to develop their own structures of self-government, autonomous education, healthcare, justice, and agrarian and economic relations, among other innovative practices. The Zapatista movement continues to raise important issues such as the role of culture and identity in popular mobilization, the social spaces for organizing in an era of globalization, the new characteristics of movements that practice alternative forms of prefigurative politics, and the possibility of redefining power from below. Scholars of the Zapatista movement have also posed probing self-reflective questions about the adequacy of conventional definitions of politics and Western positivist epistemologies and about the need for decolonizing research in indigenous and other oppressed communities.
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Zimbabwe: A History of the Military in Politics, 1980–2019
Martin Revayi Rupiya
In post-conflict states, the establishment of institutions, as part of state formation, is carefully managed in order to prevent the resumption of fighting amongst former armed groups. In the transition from colonial Rhodesia to present Zimbabwe, the process was guided by the provisions contained in the December 2, 1979 Lancaster House Agreement (LHA) reached in London by parties in dispute. The LHA provided for a finely balanced political power sharing arrangement during the first decade between the minority white and the majority African population. This was divided and embedded for the next ten years, in a ratio of 20 to 80 seats, respectively, in the new National Assembly. The accord’s underlying assumption was, therefore, that the African majority represented a cohesive and united group. Given the end of the conflict with a ceasefire signed by the political entities, each with a highly charged armed group—comprising the Rhodesian Security Forces (RSF), former combatants of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), and the Zimbabwe Peoples’ Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA)—an urgent, parallel process to establish an integrated force was also in support of the new administration that would emerge from the two scheduled electoral processes. Since the creation of the Zimbabwean state, in April 1980, the security establishment has evolved into a highly politicized institution in support of the ruling party and executive, ultimately serving as the alternative to electoral legitimacy, placing them at odds with the citizenry. In examining the transformation over nearly four decades, the evidence reveals three distinct steps that began by invitation, between 1980 and 2001, against actual and perceived political opposition. This was followed by the second step, made explicit on January 9, 2002, when the full repertoire of top generals in full regalia appeared on television redefining the criteria of the presidency, outside the electoral norm but in support of the incumbent in an incestuous relationship. This position persisted from January 2002 until November 2017. On November 21, 2017, President Robert Mugabe was compelled to tender his resignation following his isolation after the violent seizure of power through Operation Restore Legacy on November 14–15. From that moment on, the military establishment in Zimbabwe, working closely with a political faction of the Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF), fully grasped political power. On December 18, 2017, a formal announcement ending Operation Restore Legacy was made together with the parallel retirement and appointment of the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), Lieutenant General Constantine Chiwenga as the new first Vice President of the country, accompanied by the Air Marshall, Perence Shiri, who became the Minister of Agriculture, and Major General Sibusiso Moyo who, at dawn on the November 15th had appeared on television announcing what has since been described as the military-assisted transition (MAT), appointed as the new Minister of Foreign Affairs among others. All the senior officers cited also became members of the ruling party, ZANU (PF)’s highest decision-making echelons of the politburo and central committee, which was now headed by Major General Engelbert Rugeje, also immediately retired, to become the new commissar or secretary general.
Relying on secondary sources, observation, and minutes of confidential meetings, the discussion provides a better understanding of why and how the political role of the military emerged almost in parallel with independence in 1980, how the institution evolved, away from the LHA plan, and what it became following the reticent and acrimonious departure of Mugabe, expelled from ZANU (PF) and compelled to resign after 38 years in power and at the helm. In the aftermath, the military has become the arbiter and kingmaker, again continuing to negate the electoral processes while observing minimally constitutional and normative provisions for purposes of retaining sub-regional, SADC, and African Union continental, multilateral support. Significantly, even with the naked politicization of the military amid the militarization of Zimbabwean politics, woven into revolutionary neo-colonial rhetoric, there has been no sufficient expectation or resolve to have Mugabe or the country’s institutions observe norms of democratic governance, particularly as leaders of the majority of African states appear convinced that, in fact, the crisis in Zimbabwe is about the continuing decolonization agenda against which revolutionary, violent methods are justified. To this end, the involvement of the political opposition receiving explicit support from the former colonial power—for instance, Joshua Nkomo exiled in Britain during the 1980s, and later the expressed support by British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, for Morgan Tsvangirai and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC)—only reinforced these impressions. Consequently, amongst the African member states, there is an unrealistic expectation that political changes will emerge from ZANU PF reforming and aligning itself to the democratic agenda. In their view, the opposition MDC is but merely a protest movement, not credited as a possible alternative government in waiting.
Article
Zimbabwe: Regional Politics and Dynamics
Brian Raftopoulos
The persistent and changing forms of military interventions in global politics present continuing challenges for democratic agendas. Authoritarian regimes in Africa bolstered by militarist structures limit the possibilities for democratic alternatives. This can lead to desperate hopes that some form of militarism is a necessary prerequisite for democratic transition sometimes with the assistance of a popular sense of appeal. The outcome of such interventions is often a prelude to yet another round of authoritarian politics. In countries like Zimbabwe embedded in a Southern African region with a history of armed liberation struggles the narratives of a liberating militarism remain strong, as does the official ownership of the liberation narratives and the purported trajectory they should follow. However as these liberation parties face growing challenges from opposition voices that contest for their own claims on liberation histories, divisions and factions within the dominant parties have increased. The future of these struggles remains uncertain but there is a growing danger that a global preference for any form of political stabilization will marginalize the more difficult challenges of developing democratic alternatives.
